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Pear Deck transforms presentations into formative assessments and active learning experiences to engage all learners. Teachers are able to interact with students using proven instructional strategies, synchronously or at their own pace.

Together, we’re helping teachers empower and engage every student!

ThinkCERCA can save teachers 10 hours a week and help students engage, grow, and strengthen their critical thinking, reading, and writing skills.

Our ready-to-teach CERCA Slide lessons, complete with Pear Deck interactive prompts are designed to spark courageous thinking!

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Preview the Lesson: Life on Venus

Do you believe in life outside of Earth? Some scientists have found interesting gasses on Venus which may be signs of life. Read on to learn more about phosphine and how scientists are trying to understand what it means.

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Writing Prompt:

Why is the discovery of phosphine on the clouds of Venus important?

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Direct Instruction

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Complete “Asking Questions and Defining Problems” lesson
Check your Comprehension

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Overview and Connect

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Read Topic Overview
Complete Connect Quick Write

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Coaching Note: Have students read the Overview. Consider giving students 10 minutes to share and collaborate before you bring the whole class together for a discussion. Engaging with text is really all about connecting text to one’s self, to others, and to the world. Remind students that as you continue to build your community of learning together, it’s important to take time to learn more about each other and discover their own purpose for learning. Students can pair with another to share experiences.

Have students complete the Connect Quick Write.

Gradual Release of Responsibility Model:

I Do It: You can share questions you have about the text, the author, etc.
We Do It: Have students work with you to generate a list of questions.
You Do It Together: Have students work in pairs or small groups to generate more questions together.
You Do It Alone: Individually, have each student generate questions.

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Reflection

What would you do if you found a new type of bug or animal?

Text

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Read and Check

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Read the text and answer “Pause and Reflect” questions (with audio support and in-text vocab)
Answer multiple-choice questions

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Coaching Note: Have students Read the text. Students will need at least 30 minutes to complete the reading. “Pause and Reflect” questions appear throughout the text. Each of these questions is designed to help students make disciplinary or personal connections to the text.

Once completed, have students answer the multiple-choice questions to Check comprehension.

Gradual Release of Responsibility Model:

I Do It: Project the reading. Preview the text with students, pointing out the “Pause and Reflect” questions. Read aloud until the first “Pause and Reflect” question. Model active reading and your response for students by answering the first question with a think-aloud: “I am thinking…,” “My initial response is…,” etc.
We Do It: As a group, read the next section of the text until the class reaches the second “Pause and Reflect” question.
You Do It Together: Have students work in pairs or small groups to read the next several paragraphs or the rest of the lesson, stopping to answer any remaining “Pause and Reflect” questions. If time allows, students could share and compare their responses.
You Do It Alone: Encourage students to independently read the text at their own pace and actively read and respond to the “Pause and Reflect” questions. Once finished, students can check their comprehension of the text by answering the multiple-choice questions.

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Reflection: Drag your dot to how you are feeling.

Keep going, I understand

I’m a little confused

Stop, I need help!

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Analyze

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Analyze the Text

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Coaching Note: If students are learning highlighting, annotation, and other disciplinary literacy strategies for the first time, they can benefit from repeated practice and the modeling and guidance that the gradual release of responsibility model provides. Here is a sample script of what that might look like in the Analyze step.

Gradual Release of Responsibility Model:

I Do It: Project the reading. Follow the highlighting and annotation prompts in the first paragraph, providing a think-aloud that explains why you are selecting a piece of the text and what you think when you read it: “I am highlighting …,” “I am going to add a note that explains that...makes me think...,” etc.
We Do It: Have students work with you to complete the next paragraph, taking notes.
You Do It Together: Have students work in pairs or small groups to complete the next several paragraphs or the rest of the lesson.
You Do It Alone: After observing teacher modeling, students can independently highlight and annotate the remainder of the text.

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Reflection: Share a Striking Quotation

Share the most striking pieces of evidence from the text.

Text

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Summarize

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Summarize the Reading

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Coaching Note: Using the sentence stems, each student can Summarize the reading. Explain to students that summarizing helps gather our thinking about the entirety of a text, which in turn helps us to create stronger, more complete arguments in response to a writing prompt.

Gradual Release of Responsibility Model:

I Do It: Project the summary box. Point out the summary stems to serve as a framework.
We Do It: Have students work with you to fill in the missing words in the summary stems. Then, using those sentence helpers, ask contributors to write a short summary of the text. Explain to students that summaries should be short, true, and include the most important ideas from the text.
You Do It Together: Have students work in pairs or small groups to complete the summary stems and write a short, accurate summary of the text.
.You Do It Alone: Preview the summary box for students, point out the summary helper stems. Then, independently, students can use those stems as a framework for writing an accurate and short summary of the text that focuses on the main ideas.

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Reflection: Think Courageously

Do you think there is life on Venus? Why or why not?

Text

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Develop

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Develop your Response

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Writing Prompt:

Why is the discovery of phosphine on the clouds of Venus important?

Coaching Note: The Develop step involves a solo or collaborative experience of building an argument. Developing a draft claim is the first step. Students then support the claim with reasons, and provide evidence to support their reasoning. After students present a supporting reason and evidence, they should also include an explanation of how the evidence links back to the reason, making their thinking visible. Together the reason-evidence-reasoning model make up the supporting paragraphs in an argument.

Gradual Release of Responsibility Model:

I Do It: Project the argument-builder step in the teacher preview. Show how you develop your CERCA in the appropriate boxes.
We Do It: Have students work with you to complete the sample claim stem. Then ask contributors to improve the claim by making it more specific or general as needed and encourage students to use more formal language to capture the specific and debatable ideas they have about the text structure.
You Do It Together: Have students work in pairs or small groups to complete the rest of the argument building or the rest of the lesson, analyzing the major ideas of the text and the details the author uses to support them. Remind students they can arrange and rearrange the argument as they go. Encourage students to test their ideas and share throughout the drafting process.
You Do It Alone: Students can refine their final argument during the actual formal drafting step in the lesson.

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Draft and Review

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Draft your Response
Review and Edit your Text
Self-Assess using the Rubric

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Coaching Note: The final step involves creating a complete Draft. Students can Review and edit their text by copying their work from the Develop step into the draft space and use sentence starters to write a complete draft of their CERCA.

Gradual Release of Responsibility Model:

I Do It: Project the contents of the Develop step. Model how you move from a single statement to a full introduction. You might begin by using the personal connect as a hook and the summary as a transition in order to develop an introduction with significance and a strong claim. Show students how to build the argument’s support using the reason->evidence->reasoning approach, so each point is stated in the reason, supported by evidence, and has a reasoning statement that links the evidence to the overall paragraph and/or argument.
We Do It: Have students work with you to complete an introduction and the first supporting paragraph together.
You Do It Together: Have students work in pairs or small groups to complete another supporting paragraph. Encourage students to test their ideas and share throughout the drafting process.
You Do It Alone: Students can refine their final argument on their own before engaging in peer editing.

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Looking Back

Through self-assessment and/or peer editing, I learned….

Text